Thiruvananthapuram: BJP President Amit Shah, who was in Kerala on Saturday, extolled the Narendra Modi government for having helped India take tremendous strides in development in the past three years. Shah was in the state, infusing new energy into the cadre to bolster BJP's prospects as the party has failed to gain ground against the LDF and UDF there.
The BJP president seized the opportunity to hit out against Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, too, who is leading the opposition against centre's recent notification banning the sale of cattle for slaughter.
"Both Left Democratic Front (LDF) and United Democratic Front (UDF) would blame us for not doing anything for Kerala. If I don't speak today, your CM will again ask: 'What have we done for Kerala?'"
Shah informed that under Modi-government, there was an increase of Rs 70 crore just in the central grant itself for the state. Citing several contributions to Kerala Shah said the central government had allocated Rs 194 crore for Kochi smart city and Rs 1257 crore for Kochi Metro, and 180 crores for micro-irrigation of 3632 hectares of land.
"If opposition leader and CM are hearing, let them open their ears and hear this. Let Rs 1,50,000 crore aid for development . And these are only about projects above 100 crores."
Referring to the "end of communism" world over Shah urged, the people of Kerala to join hands with the BJP. "Around the world communists have finished, so has Congress in India," Shah said emphasising the importance of Kerala for the BJP. Kerala is no less than Kashi as this is the land from where Deen Dayal Upadhyaya was elected the President of Jana Sangh.
Shah didn't spare the Gandhi family, either. Taking a dig at the family that has been repeatedly associated with "dynasty politics", Shah said that Politics had changed completely and "under Modi, caste politics, dynasty politics have all ended".
"When Manmohan Singh handed over the reins to PM Modi, the growth rate was 4.4%. But now, it's 7.1% within 3 years, leaving behind China," he said, adding that the Indian economy was the fastest growing economy in the world.
Shah said BJP is one party that doesn't work on the basis of election results or with the aim of forming governments. "We work towards making India the best."
Training guns on the erstwhile Manmohan government, Shah said that the youth were disillusioned with the UPA government as the women were sad and upset, jobs decreasing and prices skyrocketing.
"Nobody acknowledged PM Manmohan as the Prime Minister of the country, but when the BJP anointed Narendra Modi as the Prime Ministerial candidate, people erupted in large numbers and handed him a thunderous majority."
Shah stressed that the BJP-led government was handed over the economy in such a state that even to repair it took three years.
Appreciating the government's steps towards helping the poor open their own bank accounts, Shah claimed," There were 60% families without bank accounts in India. But under Jan Dhan Yojana, not even a single family is without a bank account."
Casting light on an array of achievements of the Modi government, Shah said there was never a stronger political will to respond to terror attacks before Modi arrived at the scene. "We have taken robust measures to mitigate terror attacks. After Uri attack, we unleashed surgical strikes on Pakistan."
"We are a global winner in the space arena today with the launch of 104 satellites; corruption was menacing under the previous government. We have rid the economy of that," he said.
Funding of the political parties that had remained untouched until now was altered by the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in this year's budget.
"Modi-government reduced it from Rs 20,000 in cash to Rs 2,000. Demonetisation is a testimony of government's courage," Shah said adding that 91 lakh new pan cards were registered under the current regime.
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